Twelve Tribes

I wonder if you have ever had an experience like this one.

This past summer, my family and I were hiking in Acadia National Park in Maine – when, about 100 feet ahead of us on the trail, coming our way from the other direction, I noticed a young couple whom I could tell were Modern Orthodox Jews. The man had tzitzit dangling out from beneath his tucked in shirt and was wearing a ballcap – under which, I imagine, he was likely wearing a yarmulke. And the woman, despite it being a warm August day, was dressed in a long skirt and long sleeves.

Now, I’ve been told before that I look pretty recognizably Jewish – or, at the very least, that, for those who would know, my features are distinctively Ashkenazi. But nevertheless, seeing this Modern Orthodox couple approaching, I wanted to be sure that they unmistakably recognized that I, too, was a Member of the Tribe.

And so I did two things. First, surreptitiously, as if I were just wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead, I pulled my Star of David necklace out from beneath my t-shirt. And second, just to make sure I didn’t leave any stone unturned, I called out by name to my kids and niece and nephew, who were a few paces ahead of me on the trail: “Keep to the right, Gavi, Nomi, Hannah, and Adam” – knowing that a more overtly Jewish set of four names you would be hard pressed to come up with.

And just as I had hoped would happen, as I and this young Modern Orthodox couple passed one another, we gave each other a knowing nod – not just the usual friendly hello that many hikers give one another on the trail, but rather, a nod with a deeper layer of meaning, a nod that silently indicated: you and I are connected.

I imagine that many of us may have had an experience like this one. Maybe you noticed someone’s chamsa necklace. Or maybe you overheard a conversation at the mall about shopping for a Bar Mitzvah suit. And maybe, like me, you felt not just that you and that person were connected, but also, that you wanted to acknowledge the connection with them.

There is a humorous slang word for this type of interaction. (I’m not making this up; you can look it up later.) It’s called “bageling.” And although the bagel is not a universal Jewish food – but rather, originates in the Ashkenazi community – nevertheless, the term is used to describe the interaction when one Jewish person tries subtly (or, in my case on the trail in Acadia, tries not so subtly) to establish with a stranger that both of them are Jewish.

It is a peculiar feeling, this sense of connection that many of us might feel when we encounter another Jewish person – peculiar, but nevertheless, real, and sometimes very strong. And even if the word “bageling” is too silly or too frivolous to describe that sense of connection, there is another word that we could use – a word that carries some sociological seriousness, a word that is likely as old as the Jewish tradition itself. The word that we might use is “peoplehood.”

Peoplehood is the idea that all Jews, in one way or another, are connected to each other. The feeling of peoplehood can include those who are Jewish by birth, those who are Jewish by choice, and those who are not formally Jewish but who participate in the life of the Jewish community through family bonds.

Sometimes, Jewish peoplehood feels really easy and good. It is the instinct you might have, when you meet someone who is Jewish, to casually use a Yiddish phrase. It is the sense of pride you might feel when you learn that a beloved public figure is Jewish – say, for example, when you learn that the point guard for the Knicks, Jalen Brunson, and his family belong to a synagogue here in Westchester. It is the feeling of familiarity and belonging you might experience when you go into any synagogue in the world – in Boston, or Berlin, or Buenos Aires – and recognize that they recite the very same prayers as we do.

And also, sometimes Jewish peoplehood can feel surprisingly difficult. It is the feeling of embarrassment you might experience when you learn that someone who has been in the news for unsavory reasons is Jewish. It is the unexpected sense of disconnect you might feel when you wander into an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood – say, Borough Park, or Monsey – and encounter a Judaism that might feel strange or unrecognizable. It is the strong feeling of frustration, or outrage, or the sense of somehow being implicated when you read about other groups of Jews acting in ways that clash with your own deeply held convictions.

Both when the relationship feels good and also when it feels difficult, Jewish peoplehood is a sense of communal relatedness – the feeling that we are all a part of one sprawling, extended family.

It pains me deeply to realize that we are living in a time when the bonds of Jewish peoplehood are becoming loose. We are living in a time of great rupture for the Jewish people – in which the many different fault lines between us are becoming wider and deeper.

A few prominent examples come to mind.

Consider the ways in which this year’s war with Iran illustrated the growing differences between the American Jewish experience and the Israeli Jewish experience – where the proportion of American Jews who were in favor of the war was approximately 40%, while for Israeli Jews, who perceive Iran to be a more immediate existential threat, support for the war was upwards of 90%.

Or: consider the heated conflict within Israeli society over whether Ultra-Orthodox Jews should be obligated to military service – a responsibility that all other groups of Israeli Jews undertake – or, alternatively, if their intensive study and preservation of the Jewish tradition should be considered its own sufficient form of national service.

Or, here in the United States: consider the ways in which each end of the Jewish religious spectrum critiques the other – how the secular Jewish world criticizes the Ultra-Orthodox for failing to meet educational standards in math and in English, and meanwhile, how the Ultra-Orthodox criticize the secular for growing increasingly disconnected from Judaism.

Or, in what is likely the most sharply felt rift that has emerged within the Jewish community: consider the fiercely argued debate among American Jewry over how to properly balance support for and critique of Israel – a debate that recently boiled over in our own Reform Movement around the question of whether the Reform rabbinical and cantorial seminary should ordain students who identify as antizionist.

Around each of these debates, the Jewish people is currently experiencing a moment of great fracture. I regularly hear from congregants about their feeling of alienation from – and sometimes, even their desire to fully disconnect from – other Jews whose lives and, seemingly, values feel unrecognizable. It sometimes feels as if our sense of Jewish peoplehood – the feeling that we are all inextricably connected to each other – is beginning to come apart.

The idea of Jewish peoplehood is ancient. As a Hebrew phrase – am Yisrael – it makes its first appearance early in the Torah, in the very beginning of the Book of Exodus. [1] There, it describes how the Jewish people have grown numerous during their 400 years in Egypt – how, originally, Jacob and 70 members of his household had migrated to the Nile Valley, and how, over the course of many generations, that small group has grown and multiplied into some two-and-a-half million men, women, and children. [2] They are no longer a mere extended family. Now, they rightly constitute a people.

As their numbers have grown, they have also grown more diverse. Although they all share a common ancestry and speak a common language, internally, they are comprised of many distinctive sub-groups: the Twelve Tribes of Israel, as they are called – each with its own particular identity. For example: the Tribe of Levi was known for being especially pious [3] – while the Tribe of Benjamin, by contrast, was known for being fierce warriors. [4] Or: the Tribe of Zebulun was comprised of sailors [5] – while the Tribe of Issachar was comprised of farmers. [6]

In today’s Jewish world, we are similarly made up of a variety of distinctive sub-groups: with Israelis and Americans; from the secular to the Ultra-Orthodox; with political liberals, centrists, and conservatives; with Jews who trace their cultural heritage to Vienna as well as to Baghdad, to Ethiopia as well as to the former Soviet Union. We might even say that we, like our biblical ancestors, are now comprised of the contemporary Twelve Tribes of Israel: as diverse and sprawling as our mythic forebears.

Perhaps we should find it surprising that a people so diverse and sprawling has been able, over the course of 3000 years, to maintain a sense of collective identity. In his classic book on the topic, the late political scientist Daniel Elazar [7] explains that, historically, there have been two different modes by which the Jewish people maintained a sense of peoplehood. The first mode, he labeled “kinship.” The second, he labeled “consent.”

“Kinship,” on the one hand, is the feeling that many Jews have of some sort of implicit family connection between us – a bond that we share, across our differences, simply by virtue of common ancestry. “Consent,” on the other hand, is an active choice that we make – a willing decision to affirm the group’s shared set of values, norms, and practices by claiming them as our own.

To put it in the context of our biblical ancestors: kinship is the connection that the Twelve Tribes felt towards one another in Egypt, even as they grew in number and diversity. Consent is the willing agreement they entered into with one another at Mount Sinai, when they collectively committed to uphold the Ten Commandments and other laws of the Torah.

Throughout most of Jewish history, kinship and consent were virtually indistinguishable. For thousands of years, the vast majority of our ancestors lived in relatively boundaried Jewish communities, where practically everyone shared the same set of collective norms and practices.

But over the past 250 years, the external boundaries around the Jewish community have become more porous. Today, individual Jews are largely able to decide for themselves not only whether to affiliate with a Jewish community – but also, which one.

As a result, we have wound up with a wide variety of different kinds of Jewish communities, each with its own set of values and norms. A secular Jew in Berkeley and a Haredi Jew in Jerusalem might understandably feel that they share very little in common. Our feeling of Jewish peoplehood has seemingly narrowed – extending only to those Jews who are in our own particular one among the Twelve Tribes.

In our era of Jewish choice, it would often be tempting to conclude that perhaps our own particular tribe should choose to fully disconnect and disaffiliate from other Jewish groups with whom we tend to disagree – that, in order to stay true to our own deeply held convictions, perhaps the time has come to shrink our commitment to Jewish peoplehood.

However, against that instinct, a similar moment from ancient Jewish history provides a tale of warning.

Two thousand years ago – in the era immediately before the destruction of the Second Temple – there were, like today, a variety of different Jewish sects, each with its own unique identity and way of practicing Judaism: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and others.

After the destruction of the Temple, the Rabbis who survived that calamity looked back and tried to explain what had caused the catastrophe. We might find their explanation surprising.

They did not write the kind of military or political narrative that a historian might give – even though they themselves had lived through the historical events. They did not write about the statue of Caligula that the Romans tried to erect in the Temple, and the subsequent rebellion that broke out against it. They did not write about how Rome suppressed the rebellion with an overwhelming display of military strength.

Rather, when the Rabbis looked back and tried to understand why their Temple was destroyed, they gave a very different kind of explanation. They said: the Temple was destroyed because the variety of different Jewish sects had harbored towards one another (in Hebrew) sinat chinam, “hatred for no good reason.” [8]

It is a curious explanation. But it is not entirely historically inaccurate. As many historians have demonstrated, [9] infighting among the various factions did indeed gravely weaken Jerusalem’s ability to resist Roman rule.

But when the Rabbis say that the Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, “hatred for no good reason,” they are making a different kind of argument. Theirs is not primarily a political concern. Rather, they are making an ethical claim.

The Rabbis are saying that the social bonds between the Jewish people – which were supposed to help sustain them through a time of crisis – had become too weak to endure. They had spent decades building mutual mistrust and disdain: vilifying one another, blacklisting each other – spending more time arguing about who is in-bounds and who is out-of-bounds than on talking about the actual issues.

It is important to note that the Rabbis are not pointing a finger at any one particular group – although there certainly were other groups with whom they vehemently disagreed. Rather, they are pointing a finger at their whole society – at the culture of distrust and delegitimization in which they themselves were active participants.

It requires only a little bit of imagination to see the parallels between their time and our own. We, too, seem to be stuck in a cycle of intra-Jewish vilification: between American Jewry and Israeli Jewry; between progressives, centrists, and conservatives; between the secular and the Ultra-Orthodox and everything in between. Like the ancient Rabbis, we, too, are living through an era of crisis, in which the Jewish people is grappling with unprecedented dilemmas. We would be wise to heed their warning: not to let sinat chinam, “hatred for no good reason,” erode the collective Jewish bond whose purpose is to help us endure.

Now, you might be thinking: my feeling towards other Jewish groups is not sinat chinam – it is not “hatred for no good reason” – that, rather, my feeling of distrust is entirely well founded.

To be clear: I am not saying that we should suppress our strongly held commitments for the sake of Jewish unity. On the contrary: a true commitment to Jewish peoplehood demands that we speak up when we see our fellow Jews acting in ways that violate our moral code. As we’ll read in our Yom Kippur afternoon Torah portion – when it comes to our extended Jewish family, our obligation is clear: “Rebuke your kinsman,” the Torah teaches. “Bear no guilt on his behalf.” [10]

But just as importantly, we must also remember the other half of that biblical verse. The Torah goes on to say: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart. … Rather, you shall love your fellow as yourself.” A commitment to Jewish peoplehood requires that we speak up – and also, requires that we do so in a way that clearly demonstrates that we are coming from a place of love and of care.

This is incredibly hard to do. Commenting on this biblical teaching, the sages of the Talmud wonder: “Is there any person in this generation who properly knows how to offer loving rebuke?” [11] We ought to take their caution seriously. It is one thing to believe in loving rebuke; it is entirely another thing to know how to actually give it. Here, then, are three practical suggestions for how to do so.

First: we should seek to understand, on their own terms, what it is that the people with whom we disagree actually believe. This will mean letting go of our own caricaturized version of their argument – and instead trying, with true curiosity, to understand what it is that keeps them up at night: the concerns that they are worried about, the values that they are trying to advance.

Second: only after we have understood them on their own terms can we effectively offer our pushback. If our critique misrepresents their true motivations, not only are we souring the discourse – but also, we are arguing against a straw man.

And third: we need to be willing to turn the critical eye inward – to acknowledge what it is that troubles us about our own position. This does not mean giving up on our deeply held convictions. Rather, it means acknowledging that everyone, including us, has blind spots.

If we can cultivate these three things – the curiosity to understand each other, the insight to offer accurate pushback, and the humility to recognize our own blind spots – perhaps we and the people with whom we disagree might be better equipped to offer loving rebuke.

Then, during a time of crisis, rather than spending our time vilifying each other, we might instead be able to actually talk about our differences. Rather than deciding to walk away from one another, we might instead decide to recommit ourselves to the ancient idea of Jewish peoplehood: the idea that, despite our very real disagreements, we are all just different plot lines in the same unfolding story; the idea that, because we light the same Shabbat candles as one another, because we blast the same shofar, because we retell the same story of the exodus, we are all a part of the same ancient, extended family – one people, comprised of twelve tribes.

Our Torah records the story of the prophet Balaam – who, from a distance, beheld the throng of two-and-a-half million Israelites crossing the desert wilderness. As they drew nearer in his field of vision, the undifferentiated mass slowly became clearer – until, at last, he could see in fine detail how it was that a people so sprawling had managed to stay together on their journey. He saw that, whenever they set up their camp, they pitched their tents tribe by tribe: with each of the twelve tribes arranged around the perimeter of the camp – and at its center, their sacred sanctuary, holding them all together. [12]

Seeing this, the prophet was so moved that he unwittingly broke into song – a song that eventually made its way into our prayer book, a song that we continue to sing unto this day – the song: mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov, mishk’notecha Yisrael, “How lovely are your tents, O Jacob; how beautiful your camp, O Israelites.”

It is a song that you might hear in any synagogue around the world. It is the song of Jewish peoplehood: of twelve tribes that are all a part of one family.

__________

[1] Exodus 1:5-9: “The total number of persons that were of Jacob’s issue came to seventy. … The Israelites were fertile and prolific. … And [the new pharaoh] said to his people, ‘Look, the Israelite people [am b’nei Yisrael] are much too numerous for us.’”

[2] The census in the Book of Numbers (1:45-46) records 600,000 adult men. We might assume roughly the same number (or more) of adult women, and the same number (or more) of male and female children. Thus, we might assume at least 2.4 million people in total (600,000 x 4).

[3] Numbers 3:6-7: “Advance the tribe of Levi and place them in attendance upon Aaron the priest to serve him. They shall perform duties for him and for the whole community before the Tent of Meeting, doing the work of the Tabernacle.”

[4] Genesis 49:27: “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf. In the morning he consumes the foe, and in the evening he divides the spoil.”

[5] Genesis 49:13: “Zebulun shall dwell by the seashore. He shall be a haven for ships.”

[6] Genesis 49:14-15: “When [Issachar] saw how good was security, and how pleasant was the country, he bent his shoulder to the burden and became a toiling serf.

[7] See Kinship and Consent: Jewish Political Tradition and Its Contemporary Uses (1983), edited by Daniel Elazar. See also Yehuda Kurtzer’s award-winning article, “Our Fragile Tents: Community, Consent, and Care” in Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas (Fall/Winter 2025: Two Years Since 10/7).

[8] Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 9b

[9] See Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations (2007)

[10] Leviticus 19:17-18

[11] Babylonian Talmud, Arakhin 16b

[12] See, specifically, Numbers 24:2: “As Balaam looked up and saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe, the spirit of God came upon him.” Shortly thereafter, in Numbers 24:5: “How fair are your tents, O Jacob – Your dwellings, O Israel!”

On Superheroes, Ragtime, Judaism, and America

Nations are like superheroes: they each have their own origin story.

Such is the argument of the American-Jewish theologian Rabbi Dr. Elliot Dorff. Just like Spiderman experiences the fateful radioactive spider bite, or Batman witnesses the murder of his parents, so too do nations tell stories about their founding: not just about how they were established, but equally, about how to understand their identity.

The Romans told the story of Romulus and Remus: twin brothers born to the god of war and raised by wild wolves. When a dispute arises between them, Romulus kills Remus – and on the site of the murder establishes the city of Rome. And indeed, throughout its history, the Roman Empire would be marked by the wolf-like spilling of blood.

By contrast, the Jewish people’s origin story, Rabbi Dorff argues, is about moving from degradation to dignity. After more than 400 years of being enslaved in Egypt, the Israelites are redeemed from bondage and brought to Mount Sinai. There, they receive the Ten Commandments, and are repeatedly taught: You shall be holy – for you were once slaves in the land of Egypt.

As the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of our founding, an old debate has resurfaced about how best to understand our nation’s origin stories. There are those who would want to emphasize the vision and achievements of the founders: highlighting the nation’s founding ideals of liberty and equality – and, in some cases, obscuring the founders’ moral failures. Others insist that those failures are not peripheral but foundational, making it difficult – and, in some cases, impossible – to regard the nation's beginnings as a source of inspiration or hope.

But each of these approaches, taken to its ideological extreme, presents an overly simplistic version of the American story. They reduce the conversation to a binary choice: asking us to regard the nation's founding either as perfect or failed – either worthy of celebration or deserving of condemnation.

This is not a very Jewish approach.

We Jews don’t believe that human beings are either good or evil, either saintly or sinful. This, argues the late Rabbi Dr. Eugene Borowitz, might be the primary distinction between Judaism and Christianity. Classical Christian theology believes that human beings are born sinful, and can only be redeemed from sinfulness through faith in Christ.

Judaism, by contrast, believes that human beings are born neutral, a blank slate. In the daily morning prayers, we read: Elohai, n’shama she-natata bi t’horah hi, “O God, the soul that You have given me is pure.” And alongside our pure, neutral, blank-slate of a soul, we are also given two inclinations: the yetzer hara and yetzer tov – our aggressive inclination and good inclination. In any given moment, we are free to choose which of these inclinations to follow. That is to say: we are not fundamentally good or fundamentally bad. Rather, we are an amalgamation of both: complex creatures, who sometimes do good and sometimes do not.

What Judaism teaches about the individual, we might be wise to apply to society. The United States, of course, is not unblemishedly virtuous – but neither is it irredeemably corrupted. Our country’s history, rather, is complex: with times throughout the past 250 years when we have lived up to our founding aspirations of life and liberty, and other times when we have not.

The United States is both the Land of Opportunity – where my immigrant ancestors found economic success, where civil liberties are enshrined in law, where our founding document declares that all people are created equal – and also, is a nation that has committed grave injustices: enslavement, the dispossession of indigenous peoples, a deadly contemporary conflict over immigration and deportation, and much else. And, it has always been a nation of striving: where suffragists, the civil rights movement, advocates for LGBTQ equality, and many others have courageously helped our country more fully live up to our ideals.

Last month, the Broadway show Ragtime was honored with the Tony Award for the Best Revival of a Musical. And perhaps what has so deeply resonated with audiences and with critics is that the show refuses to tell a binary story about this country: that we are deserving either of celebration or condemnation. Rather, it tells a multifaceted story of America: a place where great ideals can be realized, and where there is still much work to do. As the musical’s opening song puts it, ours is a complex country: a nation of both “riches and rags, and rhythm and rhyme” – if only we can acknowledge it all.

For USA 250, I Took a Trip to Canada

To mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, I and a group of 40 other Reform rabbis took a trip to Canada.

The trip was born out of a simple but important idea – namely: that diaspora Jewish leaders should learn from one another’s experiences. Around the world, diaspora Jewish communities are living through a complex period of upheaval. Perhaps, as the trip’s organizers proposed, if a group of American rabbis were to spend a week immersed in the Canadian Jewish experience, we might return home with a deeper understanding of the American Jewish experience.

Indeed, the American Jewish experience is currently in a moment of tumult. The point is clearly illustrated by two prominent news stories that appeared in the Jewish press immediately before our trip.

The first news story was the vigorously debated “Re-Charging Reform Judaism” conference that took place two weeks ago on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The conference was organized by a group of Reform Jewish leaders who feel that the Reform Movement has become too universalistic and not enough particularistic – that is: that Reform Judaism has spent too much energy on issues that are not uniquely Jewish (say, for example, climate change or gun-violence prevention), and, correspondingly, has spent not enough energy on issues that are particular to the Jewish people (Israel, antisemitism, and a feeling of attachment to the Jewish people). The flashpoint of the conflict is a debate over whether Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion – the Reform Movement’s rabbinical and cantorial seminary – should ordain students who identify as antizionist. It is an issue around which the two-million Reform Jews in the United States share no general consensus – and one that is liable to develop into a future organizational schism.

The second news story that broke just before our group left for Canada had to do with New York City’s annual Celebrate Israel Parade – and, specifically, centered around two polarizing political figures: one who did not attend the parade, and one who did. The figure who did not attend is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani – making him the first sitting mayor in the festival’s 60-year history not to participate, and illustrating a leftward shift in the politics of the city. The figure who did attend the parade is Israel’s Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich – the highly controversial leader of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, an illustration of the rightward shift in Israeli politics.

It was with these two headlines in mind – along with many other trends and dilemmas that are currently roiling the American Jewish community – that our group departed for Canada.

I had imagined that the trip would primarily be a study in similarities. Instead, it turned out to be a study of differences.

We soon discovered that Jewish life in Canada is culturally thicker than it is here in the US – that group identity is stronger, and that Jewish practice is more traditional. For example: among American Jews, only about 7% of non-Hasidic families enroll their kids in Jewish day schools. In Canada, the proportion is 20%. Similarly: among American Jews, 37% identify as Reform – making it the largest denominational affiliation. In Canada, only 16% identify as Reform – making it the smallest denomination, behind Conservative and Orthodox.

On questions of Jewish practice, Canadian Jewry is notably more traditional than here in the US. In the US, Reform rabbis are granted the autonomy to decide for themselves whether or not to officiate at weddings where only one of the partners is Jewish – and, according to a 2018 study, nearly 85% of Reform rabbis (including me) do indeed do so. Similarly, here in the US, the Reform movement has officially embraced the notion of “universal descent” (also known as “patrilineal descent”) – whereby a person is considered Jewish not only by virtue of their mother having been Jewish (the historically accepted position), but rather, so long as they have one Jewish parent (regardless of that parent’s gender) and they are actively living a Jewish life.

Canadian Jewish practice, by contrast, is far more restrictive on both of these issues. For example: according to the policies the Reform Rabbis of Greater Toronto (who, again, are the smallest denomination), a rabbi can maintain membership in the organization if they officiate at intermarriages or accept universal descent – but they are not permitted to serve on a Beit Din (a panel of three rabbis who preside over conversions to Judaism).

A quick glance at two websites further demonstrated the point. When you visit the homepage of the Reform Jewish Community of Canada, the top banner (at the time of our trip) reads: “We Stand with Israel.” When you visit the corresponding US website, ReformJudaism.org, the top banner reads: “Registration Now Open for our Biennial Conference 2026.”

There are many possible explanations for these differences between American Jewry and Canadian Jewry. Three, in particular, stand out.

The first is that while the US is strongly individualistic, Canada is more oriented towards group-identity. The US Constitution protects the private rights of its citizens: the individual’s right to personal property, or to freedom of expression. Because Canada, by contrast, was founded as a compromise between English and French settlers, woven into the Canadian Charter are specific protections not for individuals, but rather, for cultural groups. For example: the Anglo-community in Quebec is entitled by law to an independently operated English-language school-system – and the same applies to the French-community in the majority-Anglo provinces.

As a result, Canada is widely recognized as a model of true multiculturalism. Unlike the American model of “the melting pot” (a metaphor first articulated by the Jewish writer Israel Zangwill), in which various cultural groups gradually homogenize to a shared national norm, Canada epitomizes the model of “the mixed salad,” in which cultural groups are mixed and tossed together without losing their distinctive identity.

A second possible explanation for why Canadian Jewish life is relatively thicker than here in the US has not to do with the national multicultural ethos, but rather, with immigration timelines. The first large-scale wave of Jewish immigration to the US began in the 1840s, when the highly assimilationist German Jews began to arrive. Canada, by contrast, had no such wave. What’s more: at the turn of the 20th century, when Eastern-European Jewish immigrants began to arrive on these shores, they settled in the United States a full generation earlier than they did in Canada – starting in the 1880s, rather than the 1900s.

As many sociologists have argued, the cultural identity of immigrant groups tends to follow a generational pattern: the first generation (the immigrants themselves) are de facto cultural outsiders; the second generation (their children) work to shed their immigrant parents’ cultural awkwardness; the third generation can’t believe that their parents were so foolish as to discard their cultural legacy, and struggles to reclaim it; and the fourth generation is apathetic. If this is correct (even roughly speaking), then it is only natural that Canadian Jewry, which immigrated later than American Jewry, would have a thicker cultural identity.

A third possible explanation for the thickness of Canadian Jewish identity has not to do with immigration timelines, but rather, with immigration experiences – specifically: immigration after the Holocaust. After World War II, both the US and Canada took in a large number of Holocaust survivors. However, the pre-existing Jewish community in the US was significantly larger than in Canada. As a result, in today’s United States, Holocaust survivors and their descendants account for only 8% of the Jewish community. In Canada, that figure is 35% – and studies show that survivors and their descendants are more likely to have a deeply rooted sense of Jewish identity. 

***

This, so far, has been a study in differences: the ways in which Canadian Jewish identity is more traditionally constructed than here in the US, and three possible explanations for why that might be so. But the purpose of our trip was not merely to identify what is different about the Canadian Jewish experience – but rather, in so doing, to help us better understand the idiosyncrasies of the American Jewish experience: aspects of our lived reality that are often hiding in plain sight.

For starters, consider the differing roles that Israel-politics plays in each country. Because (unlike in Canada) the United States is a global superpower, and values having a democratic partner in the Middle East; and because (unlike in Canada) the United States has a powerful evangelical Christian voting bloc, with strong theological ties to Israel; our national conversation about Israel occupies a far more prominent and contentious position than it does in Canada. As a result, Jewish Americans more often feel themselves tumbling in the political whirlwind.

Perhaps even more significantly, consider two American narratives that are fundamental to our self-understanding. One narrative is aspirational; the other narrative is condemning.

The aspirational narrative is the American notion of the Promised Land. The United States has long thought of itself as a “shining city on a hill” – a beacon for humanity, a light unto the nations. Ours is a country that was founded on and strives after an ideal – even though we have not always lived up to it – that all people are created equal, and are endowed with certain unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Canada, by contrast, strives for far less lofty aims. Its founding document promises not life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – but rather, a more mundane and practical trio: “peace, order, and good government.”

Indeed, this aspirational national narrative has impacted American Jewry. European Jewish immigrants came to this country not for convenience, but rather, because they believed it was a land of opportunity – di goldene medine, as they would have called it in Yiddish: a country where the streets were paved with gold. But the American Dream didn’t offer only economic advancement. Equally, the US offered a system of government committed to civil liberties and democratic norms – a degree of acceptance and protection that was unique in all of Jewish history. So strong was the American narrative of Promised Land that many Jews here proclaimed that “the United States is our new Zion.” Canadian Jews, by contrast, are far less messianic about their home-country.

But there is also a second narrative that has shaped American life, and that has, in turn, shaped the American Jewish experience – this one not aspirational, but rather, condemning: the narrative of Original Sin. From the time before the country was even established, the United States committed grave injustices – towards the indigenous people who lived here, and through the institution of slavery and its long legacy. It is more than 250 years later, and the question of how to understand our nation’s Original Sin continues to be a matter of fierce ideological debate.

In that debate, American Jews have often found themselves maligned. In some circles, Jews are cast as the ultimate oppressors – the perpetrators or enablers of many of America’s sins. In other circles, Jews are accused of trying to overturn white cultural hegemony, under the supposed guise of atoning for America’s sins. In both instances, classic antisemitic tropes have seeped into the debate about our nation’s Original Sin – and American Jews are cast as villains.

In Canada, by contrast, these two narratives – the narrative of Promised Land, and the narrative of Original Sin – are not a core part of their national identity. It took visiting there to realize how significantly these narratives have shaped American Jewry.

***

Last year, a biography was published (and last week, a new documentary released) of one of the most culturally significant Canadian Jews: the famed co-creator and executive producer of Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels.

In it, the biographer describes how Michaels’ Canadian identity has contributed to his comedic sensibility. Growing up in Canada allowed Michaels to absorb American media, politics, and culture – but do so at a distance: able to see with ironic detachment what is funny about our society.

In a different cultural medium, this is the role not only of the comedian, but equally, of the prophet: to stand at the margins and point out things that are askew about our world. It is a role that, for thousands of years, Jews have naturally fit.

What the prophet does for the world; what the comedian does for society – such can Canadian Jewry do for the American Jewish community.

As we navigate this complex period of upheaval in American Jewish life – and as we approach the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country – we might learn from our neighbors to the north. Sometimes, you have to stand outside of a thing to understand it.

After West Bloomfield, Find Jewish Joy

Yet again, it has been a painful week for the Jewish community. The car ramming at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, yesterday afternoon was destabilizing. As a close friend texted me last night: “It hit too close to home.”

For our congregants who live in Hastings, the news from Michigan was made only more unsettling by the antisemitic stickers that were placed around town earlier in the week.

Quite honestly, I am exhausted by news like this. Over the past several years, there have been so many violent and even deadly antisemitic attacks – Sydney, Australia; Manchester, England; Boulder, Colorado; Washington, DC; Colleyville, TX; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and too many others to full recount – that it is hard to keep track of them all.

Recently, there has been much conversation in the organized Jewish community about how best to respond to antisemitism. One writer and thinker whom I especially admire (Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer, President of the Shalom Hartman Institute) makes the following argument. (The full article is worth the time, if you have five minutes to read it.)

There are many possible approaches to confronting antisemitism – some of them more productive, some of them less so. The best approach, Kurtzer argues, is for the organized Jewish community to maintain strong relationships with elected officials and with law enforcement, and to work to support the healthy functioning of the institutions of democracy. Doing so reframes antisemitism not as “a problem for the Jewish people” but rather as “a problem of our society.” And indeed, I am grateful that Temple Beth Shalom has strong relationships with our elected officials, law enforcement, and other civil servants.

Another productive approach is to strengthen security measures within individual Jewish institutions. This, too, we have been doing at Temple Beth Shalom – as our several recent congregational emails about security have noted. Our Board has been proactive in implementing security personnel, facilities improvements, trainings for staff and leadership, and consultations with outside experts to help keep our congregation safe.

Unfortunately, Kurtzer notes, there are also less productive approaches to confronting antisemitism. Perhaps most harmful among them is the tendency, so prevalent in our society, to hunker down into our partisan bunkers. It is long-evident that antisemitism is a problem not only of the political left or the political right. Comparing the two, and trying to determine which one is worse, unhelpfully transforms the actual threats against the Jewish community into a game of partisan one-upmanship.

There is an additional approach that Kurtzer considers, an approach that likely won’t transform the antisemitic landscape around us, but nevertheless can transform the Jewish feeling within us – which is: in spite of those who would threaten us, to continue to cultivate Jewish joy.

This evening, after what has been a painful week for the Jewish community, we will gather here at Temple Beth Shalom as we do every Shabbat: to light candles, to sip wine, to eat good food, to sing, to tell stories, to be surrounded by family and community – in short: to experience Jewish joy. Tonight, in particular, will be especially joyful. This evening is our annual Klezmer Shabbat (services begin at 7:30pm) – featuring our congregant-driven Klezmer band, our adult choir, and a special guest appearance from our Third Grade Religious School class.

Ethnomusicologists have described Klezmer music’s distinctive tone as the sound of “joy through tears.” Most Klezmer music is written in a hybrid of a major and a minor key – the sound of celebration (major), despite the difficult circumstances of the world (minor).

This week in particular, Klezmer will give a lift to our souls – the opportunity to experience joy through tears, surrounded by our loving Jewish community.

I hope we might see each other this evening. And I hope we will soon know better days.